Hartmann, Sadakichi - Benjamin de Casseres (essay date 1926)
Benjamin de Casseres (essay date 1926)
SOURCE: "Sadakichi Hartmann," in American Mercury, Vol. 9, No. 36, December, 1926, pp. 397-98.
[In the following essay, de Casseres provides a short sketch of Hartmann's exploits.]
A grotesque etched in flesh by the drunken Goya of Heaven. A grinning, obscene gargoyle on the Temple of American Letters. Superman-bum. Half God, half Hooligan; all artist. Anarch, sadist, satyr. A fusion of Jap and German, the ghastly experiment of an Occidental on the person of an Oriental. Sublime, ridiculous, impossible. A genius of the ateliers, picture studios, ginmills and East Side lobscouse restaurants. A dancing dervish, with graceful, Gargantuan feet and a mouth like the Cloaca Maxima. A painter out of Hakusai, Manet, Monet, Whistler. Result: fantastic realism. A colossal ironist, a suave pessimist, a Dionysiac wobbly.
Hartmann has the gift of elusiveness in all he writes. Ironic elusiveness is the...
[The entire page is 636 words long]
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